House Buying

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Triptych

At the Start
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I never realised house buying could be so stressful. Last week I went to look at a house which I fell in love with. The building society called me on Tuesday to let me know the closing date was next Monday at 5.30pm and I had previously been led to believe by the vendor that it was to be sealed bids (I'm in Scotland). I then had a valuation carried out on Wednesday for mortgage purposes for the sum of £150. Yesterday I got a phone call at 3pm whilst at work from the building society telling me the vendors didn't want to wait until Monday and wanted it done and dusted that day. Apparently there was another interested party who had offered the asking price. I offered over the asking price, I then got a call back to say the others had gone higher. I then went higher, they went higher again. At this point I dropped out as I was getting that poker feeling when you've been dragged into a hand that you really wish you hadn't been. I've learned a lot from it though, looking back I should have told them I wasn't prepared to make a decision before Monday as I'm fairly sure they would have waited. The £150 up the spout is a bit galling and I had the most stressful two hours yesterday I've had for a long time. I think I'll stay where I am forever now........
 
I don't think there is anything more stressful than buying and selling houses. I swore we'd never do it again but my eye has been caught by a lovely house and I would've gladly moved again only I'm about 100k short :( I didn't win the lottery tonight so I guess I'm stuck here.

Getting your offer accepted is just the start. It gets a hell of a lot worse after that! I hope you find somewhere soon :)
 
Originally posted by Triptych@Feb 17 2007, 10:37 PM
I never realised house buying could be so stressful. Last week I went to look at a house which I fell in love with. . I then had a valuation carried out on Wednesday for mortgage purposes for the sum of £150.
Click to expand...
Surely a number of Mortgage lenders are now offering free valuations.
 
I am desperate to move but dreading going through the process again. The two things I have learnt is have your budget and stick to it, and always put it a 'silly offer' first. What you think is silly may be the one they have been waiting for! If your limit offer is not taken, leave it and walk away. It's not meant to be and something 'better' or equally as good will come along. Where I am now I offered too much for it, knowing it needed work but I wanted the space it offered but the work it needed trebled when I saw it empty. It is taking far longer to get things done with the limited budget I have because there is more that needs doing before I think I could offer it for sale.
Don't worry - something will come long that you are meant to have that you will love equally as much. :)
 
Sounds like you've been pretty unlucky, Triptych. Where in Scotland are you?

It also sounds like the agents are playing silly b*ggers with you. I'd suspect they're acting illegally too.

My recent experience of house buying up here wasn't too good. Agents are now grossly undervaluing properties to attract interest before getting prospective buyers involved in a bidding war, confident in the knowledge someone will have checked out the going rate in the area and end up bidding in excess of that in order to secure the property. There's also something I hadn't heard of before (we moved 11 years ago) called an 'expression of interest'. Once two of those come in they tend to set a closing date.

If someone else has done a survey, you can piggy-back it for a reduced fee (about 1/3 off what the original cost).
 
When I was house buying around this time two years ago, any property which I walked into where the owner mentioned a closing date, I walked straight back out of on principal.

**** them.

Bugger, I suppose I'll need to take a % off my target now.
 
Originally posted by Diamond Geezer@Feb 18 2007, 12:34 PM
Surely a number of Mortgage lenders are now offering free valuations.
Click to expand...
Not mine, sadly!

DO, I'm on the Scottish/English border - property in Scotland, estate agent in England. Anyway a for sale sign has popped up at a house around the corner from the other one. Here I go again!
 
Part 2:

Called solicitors who are selling house no.2 to arrange a viewing and was told the person I needed to speak to would call me back. She calls me back - 'Is Friday at 11.30 ok?' 'Er no, I have a job and will be at work then'. 'Oh, well I'll have to speak to the vendor to see when else will be convenient, I'll call you back'.

I'm still waiting.

Aaaarrrrghhhhhhh!!!!!!
 
Having bought and sold a fair number of properties in my time - admittedly all in England - in a buyer's market (which is the case now in general), remember to take the name of any employee of an agent that doesn't deal with your requests in a timely manner and, when you do finally get to view the property, tell the vendor your experience of the sales process. If this happens repeatedly, go to the Agency boss and tell them!

Of course in this case, your agent may not have been able to reach the vendor for the same reason you can't do Friday - ie vendor's working and isn't contactable.
 
I'm trying hard to persaude Mr GG that we should move back to MK to be nearer my friends and family, with not much success at the moment. But if we do buy a house in MK there is one estate agents we'll avoid like the plague, even going as far as to not buy a house if it's being sold by them. There's no way on earth I'd deal with them again after the incompetance shown by them when they sold our last house. It was the first house we'd sold, we were naiive and they cost us thousands of pounds and couldn't care less.

I can't believe I'm even contemplating going through all that stress again!
 
I know - it's a nightmare all right. The last time was the absolute worst - we had the contents of our own house, plus my mother's house, several horses, admittedley only one child but also a whole company to move...

We ended up moving the company out of the property first into commercial premises in Welly, then decided to sell the house rent and be in a position to be cash buyers. Which meant boarding out the equines for six months. However, it's the only way I'll ever be a purchaser again - while having stuff in storage is expensive and renting as well, the fact that you're in a strong position in what was then a seller's market made the extra expense worthwhile, as it reduced our stress levels!!
 
I've now decided against house no. 2 due to the amount of asbestos it contains. Although its white asbestos and relatively safe if untouched the amount of renovation it requires means it would be difficult to leave it untouched. The estate agents managed to omit any mention of asbestos in their particulars, and despite querying this on Monday I'm still waiting on them calling me back!
 
Trips, don't know whether your procedures are any different in Scotland to England or Wales, and I don't know the location (rural/suburban/urban) of your planned abode, but throughout the Midlands and the North of England, as well as many parts of Cornwall, it's usually essential to a mortgage to get a mining survey done to prove that your home-to-be doesn't have mine tunnels, adits or other erosions of the earth running around or beneath it, or within so many metres. There is a lot of subsidence in ex-mining areas, showing up in external and internal cracking, uneven flooring, sagging doorframes, brickwork looking out of true, and even side walls bulging.

If an agent didn't tell you about asbestos, you might want to find out about any other potential problem that the area around the building might have had or is likely to have. Check if there are any outstanding planning applications for building on any nearby vacant lots, if there are any, and what's likely to be there. I remember someone in Staffs buying a lovely house in a peaceful village, only to find that the vacant lot opposite their house was just about to begin being turned into an all-night petrol station/shop! :( The estate agent knew full well about it, but omitted to mention this, as he felt he would never sell the house. Same scenario with your asbestos.
 
It may be different in Scotland but I would suggest you would be very silly relying on your lawyer to accomplish that for you - all English solicitors will do is contact the Planning Department. What they won't know if anyone is intending to submit plans on land close by.

This happened to us once - we bought a nice house on the outskirts of a village and the vendor owned a field opposite. We aske dour solicitor to check whether any buiding was planned and no plans were submitted and we were assured it would get PP because it was outside the planning envelope for the village.

Ha! Several years and a few bungs later and PP was granted. However, if we'd done our homework a little better and spent some time asking around the village, we would have been told that these plans were already being mooted and we would probably not have bought the house.

Luckily, the development was a quality one and it didn't adversely affect the value of ours significantly but the nuisance factor to us was immense.
 
The efficiency of lawyers is probably highly variable. Ours is sh*t-hot. We've moved a few times and she's been brilliant every time.
 
Well, bully for you DO. But this was a bit of advice for Triptych - she may not realise the underhand crap that can go on.
 
But a good lawyer would, which was all I was saying. No need for the tone of your comment but it's something I'm learning to expect.
 
Perhaps you can let me know exactly how you feel you should be addressed, teacher? Genuflection?

Why is it when we try to say something helpful to someone, there's always someone sounding smug about their own situation? How does it help Triptych to know you're satisfied with YOUR lawyer? How would you know if your lawyer was on the ball or conspiring as much as anyone else in the business to hide certain issues? You don't, until you have the experience. If you do have a list of questions you can ask, though, at least they have to address them and then later on, if they've failed, you can take action against their bad advice.
 
Thank you for all your comments, advice, help etc, it is much appreciated. I have now spotted potential buys 3 and 4. This could be a long running saga. And I'm still waiting for the previous estate agents to call me back.............
 
Trips: if you really want to see a property, and the agent hasn't called you back to arrange a viewing after several days, you're as well off to pass by and drop a note through the owner's door, with your phone number on it, saying you're keen to view, but that their agent has failed to assist you to do so. They may be quite happy to show you over themselves, or at least put a rocket up the agent. And, frankly, if the agent's slipshod, the owner may well be happy to sell direct to you, cutting out the agency's %. They need to be nearing the end of their contract, though, so the agent can't bounce back later and claim to have effected the 'introduction'. Worth a try when any agency fails to arrange a viewing after a reasonable length of time. (Within the week - unless the owner's on holiday.) The owner can always inform the agency, anyway, and if you're interested in making an offer, no harm is done - and you've got the viewing you wanted.
 
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